


Dreaming of Budapest

by scribblemyname



Series: Trope Bingo 2014 [16]
Category: Firefly, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Community: be_compromised, Dreams, F/M, Fusion, Gen, Medical Abuse, Meeting, Remix, Standing Watch, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Tam dreams that Natasha needs help—and answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. With Unnatural Suddenness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OracleGlass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In Two Straight Lines In Rain or Shine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/679306) by [OracleGlass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/pseuds/OracleGlass). 



> Remix of In Two Straight Lines In Rain or Shine by OracleGlass for the Clint/Natasha Remix Exchange by Be Compromised.

River Tam whimpers in her sleep, body twitching, toes curling upward, red hair tossing against her pillow until with unnatural suddenness, she shoots upward in a tangle of bedcovers and out of the bed, screaming. She hits the door and runs down it.

“The dancer! The dancer! The bad, bloody dance…”

And Simon is struggling to wrap his arms around her, but she keeps screaming and yanking herself out of his grip.

“No, she’s coming. She needs us. The bad, bloody dance.” The words run in a stream of strange and frightening and needful pleading all in one.

The commotion has brought the entire crew out of the woodwork, and Mal exchanges looks with Simon and Zoe.

“Well, ain’t that just interesting,” the captain says.

—

Of nights, Clint curls his body protectively around hers, never mind he knows how dangerous Natasha can be. But she is pale and weary and thrashes in her sleep, full of the thoughts of too many people around her, too many dark fears she can’t quite shove to the back of her head like others do.

He stays awake, tense and watchful, listening to the fitful sounds of Budapest. It’s a backwater moon where only the lowest, barely scraping by traders come to visit. It’s exactly the kind of place they need to be.

Natasha’s limbs grow fitful. He hushes her gently. Sometimes it works, and she clings to him tighter, digging nails into his arms without waking. Other times, it doesn’t work and he becomes thankful that he was trained in security and combat, or else she would be too much for him, and he’d likely end up dead. Tonight, she wakes abruptly with a sharp cry.

“Tasha, Tasha.” He calls her name soothingly for as long as it takes.

She shakes her head violently, cheeks flushed, and then stares out the window for a long moment. Finally, she hears him and looks at him. She _sees_ him and curls abruptly into his arms.

“We have to go,” she says in a surprisingly collected voice.

Clint studies her. There is no fear, nor even that heedless confidence she gets sometimes. “Is someone coming after us?” he asks quietly.

She shakes her head again. “Coming for us.” She pats his hand. “Coming to help.” Then she settles her head back on the pillow and goes out like a light.

Clint scrubs his hair and face with his hand before deciding there is nothing to be done. When she gets back to her own brand of crazy, which thankfully isn’t all the time, there’s no stopping her or understanding, just roll with it. So he does. He rolls over, wraps himself around her, and keeps one hand near his weapon, one ear open to the night.

—

River curls up in the co-pilot’s chair and Malcolm watches her stare quietly out the front window.

“Not much going there,” he points out, “not where we’re headed.” That barren dustball moon of Budapest has little going for it, few resources, and very few contacts where Mal can unload their cargo.

River just looks over at him and smiles, then turns back to watch the stars.


	2. A Mission, Bloody Dancer

“Natasha.”

That’s Clint’s voice calling softly from the windowsill as she exits the dingy little bathroom in the corner of their tiny hotel accomodations. Budapest has little going for it in any of the handful of settlements Clint and Natasha blow through like so much wind and dust, but it’s anonymous and forgotten at the edge of things, and that’s the kind of place they need.

She knows her faked death will hold. She doesn’t believe it.

“Clint.” She settles on the bed, waiting as it accepts her weight for him to speak.

He’s finished cleaning his gun, one of them anyway, and his focused gaze has come to rest on her. “Where to next?”

She looks away and shrugs. Here is nice. Here is fine. There is no one with blue hands, no one putting needles in her brain, no one calling her by all the different names they trained her to slip in and out of for so many years. There is no mission, only Clint who calls her by the name she was born with.

 _Natasha_.

She leans back on the bed. “I like the way you say my name,” she murmurs.

His sigh is so weary, so tired, and she knows he thinks she’s being random, maybe even slipping away again into her conditioning or the thoughts of all the low-life traders and settlers pressing around them, but she’s not. She feels his protective exasperation and care strong enough to slow the others to a hum.

“Come here?” Her voice cracks on the end, a slight plea. She shouldn’t plead, shouldn’t beg. It makes her weak unless she’s acting, but she’s not.

He comes and slides into the bed around her, somehow wrapping her up in his embrace in a single motion.

She likes the feel of it, the way his mind hums with _keep her safe_ and _never let her go_. She tries to ignore the _what are we gonna do?_ She tugs his arms to where she wants them around her waist and lays her head on his shoulder. He kisses her hair. She sleeps.

—

She dreams and she is not Natasha. She is the little redheaded girl screaming under needles going into her brain, screaming as they cut her open, screaming as blood pours over her hands.

_You have a mission, you have a mission, you have a mission…_

Voices echo in her head from the two men standing before her with their blue hands folded in front of them. _Dance, child._

She raises her arms and stretches out in an arabesque, knives gleaming in her hand, lips curving upward in a smile.

_You have a mission, bloody dancer, mission, have a mission— Dance!_

Natasha’s eyelids open, and she screams.

—

Across the starry skies over Budapest, a redheaded girl shoots straight up in her bed and screams with her.

“The dancer! The dancer! The bad, bloody dance…”


End file.
